Defibrillator helps officer revive man

Patrolman Robert Dudash said Officer Brett Bekiarian was dispatched at approximately 6 p.m. on an ambulance call to the Entenmann’s Bakery on Route 27, where he found Highland Park paramedics giving CPR to a man lying on the roadside.

Bekiarian had a defibrillator in his patrol car, Dudash said.

"It verbalizes commands to the operator of the machine," he said.

When Bekiarian hooked the machine up to the man, he was advised that one electric shock was needed.

After the shock was administered, the man’s heart restarted and he was eventually able to begin breathing on his own, after Bekiarian and the paramedics performed emergency breathing techniques, Dudash said.

The victim, Pedro Blasi, 44, Elizabeth, was transported by the Clara Barton First Aid Squad to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where he was listed in critical but stable condition, he said.

Dudash said Blasi had apparently experienced some kind of seizure, which brought on the cardiac arrest.